Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

With the Data Protection Act (1998), the nursery has to control and protect the handling of the personal information of children and parents. Recklessness and naivety can cause personal information being let out into the public eye. Staff writing down children’s or their parent’s personal details or opinions can end up open to public view. This can be minimised by making sure all data is

Giving out any of this information is a breech of confidentiality. It should only be passed on to other members of staff if the information given causes you concern, where the child’s welfare may be at risk.

Adults who work with children and young people will come to know most of the personal information like date of birth, address and contact details and also sensitive information like behavioural issues, some medical information, family background, whether parents are divorcing and so on. It is the responsibility of the adult to keep this information confidential. They must protect the identity of the child they work with and that of their families and carers. They must do everything in their power to protect the privacy of every child and adult.

All staff members have read and agreed with our child protection policy and any students or voluntary workers are asked to read them so they also are aware of what to do in case they suspect a child is being abuse or if a child makes a disclosure to them.

In the setting, we provide a healthy and safe environment for children. For children’s safety, all visitors must sign the visitor’s book, security camera systems are in place, password protection for children and marked registration. So the setting tries to protect children from harm.

Keeping in mind data protection, be aware of what is going on in a child’s life and any changes that may affect their behaviour

45% of teens have lied about their age to get a social media account. Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or COPPA, is the restrictions that keep minors under 13 from getting an email, social media, and other accounts. Censorship is the exclusion or withholding of information, so COPPA is technically censorship, because it limits and withholds information from sites and children. COPPA limits the information that sites can collect from children under 13 , and has successfully limited information collection and has had multiple violations.

Our nursery has a Confidentially policy in place that members of staff, volunteers and students have read and understood, all child information to be securely locked away.

It said that this Act was in a way creating "adult zones" on the internet and that was constitutional based on the decision in Renton v. Playtime theatres Inc. CDA was not trying to ban "indecent" material, just to separate it, so that minors could not access such material. However, the zoning laws could not be applied to the internet because it is not a physical place, therefore a person who posts information cannot be certain that it will not reach minors, since there is no way to prove if a person is a minor when they are online. #

It is important to reassure children, young people and adults that any information kept about them is confidential and will only be used when necessary i.e. if a children is deemed to be at risk and that it is their right to privacy to keep it confidential, it should be made clear the reasons the information is collected and for what is will be used for. By reassuring parents and children it can make the situation a positive one in that they will understand the reasons are to ensure their safety at all times.

“There is a fine line between censorship, good taste and moral responsibility” (Censorship Quotes, brainyquote). Internet restrictions block illegal activity by many youths and adults. Children are being exposed to pornography and sex trafficking, which exposing them to this kind of content at such a young age will potentially hurt them. Although internet restrictions are costly to maintain and monitor, restrains are to be enforced in everyday lives for young adults because of sex trafficking, illegal activities and identity theft.

“See you in court” has often been the mantra cried when a person feels their privacy has been violated, or their free speech infringed. When people take a legal cause of action against a party, they feel wronged them, then sue them in court for damages, this is known as a tort (p. 110). Current laws seem to favor free speech above privacy rights. These complex legal issues are often viewed through a libertarian or authoritarian lens. When the internet came along it compounded the difficulty of these matters. In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act (CDA) in response to growing issues sprouting from the new medium, the internet. Privacy expert and law professor, Daniel J. Solove addresses these complex legal issues in chapters

Since there has not been a ruling in this case, the supporters of the censorship laws had to try and find a way to get the internet censored to children. So in the year 2000, Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act, which is aimed at the computers in the schools and libraries that the children would have access to. This law was limited to "only the schools and libraries that participated in certain federal programs such as, receiving federal money for technology". The schools and libraries that received this money were required to "install filtering software on all internet terminals to block access to sites with child pornography, obscene material, and material that is harmful to minors". My opinion on this law is that it is even better than the firs one. They are very similar, as you can tell from their names, there is very little changed in the names of the laws. I think that the sites that a minor can look at should be filtered. This way they cannot look at things that can be harmful to them.

School internet filters take away the students ability to effectively choose their own sites and as a product, provide a disadvantage to the students in the form of an inability to practice internet safety for themselves. Schools ban websites frivolously, even going so far as to ban sites that are linked with sites that are deemed inappropriate(D). Students will have difficulty later in life such as in college where they are unable to determine if a source is inaccurate as they have never been given the opportunity to see inaccurate sources due to restrictive school internet filters. This disadvantages the students by removing choice and critical thinking from internet use and website selection, this further shows that school internet filters are too

     Despite the restrictions imposed by the CDA, and the jeopardy in which it places our First Amendment rights, many still support it, feeling that the Internet should be censored so that minors are not exposed to indecent, obscene, or pornographic materials when using it. These people should be made aware of the fact that there are currently several systems available, such as lockout programs, and several more being developed, such as Web site rating systems, which allow parents to screen and regulate what their child sees, according to their own standards, without government interference.